


countdown to freedom

by Morning66



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: F/F, Future Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25190461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morning66/pseuds/Morning66
Summary: The thing is, it’s hard to be sixteen and trapped by expectations, counting down the days until you’re free.Pacifica does the best she can.
Relationships: Pacifica Northwest/Mabel Pines
Kudos: 39





	countdown to freedom

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!!! Basically just a little thingy about Pacifica. Hope you like it!! :)
> 
> Warning: very vague references to child abuse (Pacifica’s parents)

In the morning, standing barefoot on the plush cream carpeting of her bedroom, nightgown swaying slightly at her sides, Pacifica writes 587 on today’s calendar date. She writes it in pink pen, the pink of chewed bubblegum and spring flowers, her handwriting girly and bubbly.

It’s a reminder, a prayer, a ritual that she does every morning, a countdown to the day she turns eighteen and, more importantly, becomes a legal adult. Then, she won’t have to stay here anymore. Then, her parents won’t be able to drag her back home to their cold house for school breaks and summer vacations. Then, she’ll be in control of her own life.

She can’t wait.

Pacifica stands back, inspects her calendar, feels a smile spread across her lips, small, but genuine. Every day is a day closer.

Standing in front of her dresser, Pacifica slips her nightgown over her head and pulls on a pair of jean shorts, short enough to be attractive, long enough to not make her look trashy. At least, that’s what her mom said when she bought them for her at the beginning of the summer, pressing whole stacks of new clothes into her daughter’s arms.

Pacifica assesses her options for a top and her eyes linger on the sweater Mabel lent her once, a few summers ago, when they’d gotten caught in a rainstorm. It’s pink with a rainbow on it, too bright, too tacky, her mother would say. She pulls it on over her head and looks at herself in the mirror, staring at the sliver of skin you can see between the top of her shorts and the bottom of the sweater.

Pacifica wonders what Mabel would think if she showed up like this today. Would she think it was cute? Would she think it was hot? 

The last thought came unbidden, but Pacifica lets it stay in her brain. She’s spent the entire last school year banishing thoughts like that, pushing them off to the far reaches of her mind, where they’d hopefully shrivel up and vanish. It won’t work, she realized about a week before she came home from boarding school.

There’s no point in wishing them away because they’ll always come back like one of those old punching dolls, bouncing back up with a bright smile. She’s trying to be okay with that. It’s a process and she’s working at it, but it’s hard, undoing years worth of teaching.

Sighing, Pacifica decides against the sweater because she’s not that brave, not yet ready to test what exactly is between her and Mabel that blatantly. Instead, she pulls on a pink tank top and slips a pony tail band on her wrist for when she’s gotten out of the house.

Carefully, she pads down the stairs, an expert in making her footsteps silent, in ensuring that her flip flops don’t slap loudly against the balls of her feet. Their new house is not Northwest Manor and she’s glad for that, glad to get away from all the stifling history and dark deeds of the past, but it’s still huge. That’s the only way her parents do things, big and extravagant and expensive.

She leaves through the servants entrance because she knows they won’t say anything to her parents. Outside, the air is warm on her skin and the sun shines bright. Pacifica smiles and heads for the Mystery Shack.

* * *

It’s early when she reaches the shack, not even eight yet because she has to come practically at the crack of dawn to skirt her parents. Mabel’s still asleep, Stan too probably, but Dipper’s there and he smiles when she knocks.

For all Pacifica’s changed since that first summer, Dipper hasn’t really changed a bit. He’s a little bit taller of course, but still skinny even if she knows he’d like to build up muscle. His cap’s firmly in place, even at seven forty in the morning, his clothes vague and non-descript, maybe not the same as those from that first summer, but close.

The Mystery Shack is open, tourist trap that it is, ready to take unsuspecting guest’s money, but there’s no one, not yet at least. Pacifica doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the messy, tacky, chaotic feel of the Mystery Shack, though she hates herself for thinking that. Still, she likes it, coming here most days in the summer.

Stan told her at the beginning of the season that if she ever needs a job here, she can have it. The way he looked her in the eyes, for once serious, when he offered implied that if she needed it, he’d do more than get her a job. Of course, that’s no surprise. Stan, for all his gruffness, cares about people. That’s why he collects outsiders and oddballs for his employees, that’s why he takes care of his great niece and nephew, who aren’t really his responsibility.

She’d told no at the time, that she’s fine just hanging out for now, going home and pretending she didn’t spend the day here. A job feels too permanent, too extreme and she’s not ready to risk her parents finding out, not just yet.

Stan had nodded and ruffled her hair, big greasy hand running through soft blonde strands conditioned with the best conditioner. She hadn’t straightened it out once he was done, had let it stay a little bit messy until she got home.

Now, Dipper sits behind the counter, objectively manning it, but mostly just paging through a book on strange mysteries of the Northwest. Pacifica sits near him, perching on the old ice cream bar freezer because she likes how cold it is, counteracting the lack of air conditioning. She grabs an old fashion magazine Stan’s trying to sell, circa three years ago, and flips through it, snorting at the stupid outfits in a way that scares her a bit because it’s so eerily reminiscent of her parents.

Occasionally, Dipper will read out loud a paragraph from his book, about manticores or Bigfoot or unicorns. Occasionally, Pacifica will show him a picture from the magazine, a particularly ridiculous outfit or a particularly good one. 

She doesn’t understand his fascination with mysteries, with things that are probably best left unknown, and he can’t tell good fashion from bad. Still, they smile and nod at each other’s statements, a quiet understanding between them.

* * *

In the afternoon, Mabel and Pacifica go to the pool, hoping to avoid the oppressive heat.

Pacifica didn’t bring a bathing suit and doesn’t want to risk going back for one so she wears one of Mabel’s, faded, but still a little too bright for her tastes. Mabel’s wearing an even brighter rainbow bikini and Pacifica can’t help but think she looks beautiful in it, a ridiculous grin plastered on her face, long brown hair floating down her back.

They splash around like children in the shallow end, making waves and tsunamis and water spouts that probably annoy the group of moms talking near them. Mabel doesn’t care, because she’s Mabel and doing crazy, silly things is practically her MO. Pacifica does care, but wishes she didn’t, so she splashes Mabel back and grins wider then she usually lets herself grin, hoping one day she won’t mind.

Afterwards, they buy popsicles from the snack bar and lay out on Stan’s frayed towels in the shade, watching little kids cannonball in and chase each other through the water.

“I had my first kiss with a merman over there!” Mabel says excitedly, reaching out an arm that’s slightly pink from the sun to point to a shady corner of the pool. Her lips are bright read from her popsicle and an old smiley face temporary tattoo is still visible on her cheek, slowly peeling away.

Pacifica looks at her friend. “Really?”

Mabel nods excitedly and tells her the whole story, voice giddy at the beginning and then slightly nostalgic at the end when she explains about Mermando’s departure. “So,” Mabel starts when she finishes her tale of first love. “Do you have any boy stories?”

Pacifica shrugs her peeling shoulders at her friend.

She could tell Mabel about how a boy asked her to homecoming this year, a nice boy, nicer than most at her private school, but despite his kindness she felt nothing when he kissed her. She could tell Mabel about how her parents have already begun talking about potential suitors, extolling the virtues of the most well-bread families.

She doesn’t say either of those things though. 

“Not really,” Pacifica says instead, but from the look in Mabel’s eyes, she can tell she understands what Pacifica means.

Sometimes, Pacifica wishes she could be as brave as Mabel, who wears rainbow clothes all year long, but especially in June. Mabel, who came one summer ago with her cheeks painted pink and purple and blue, proud and happy.

She’s not though, she can’t be, not here in a town her traditional parents virtually own, but she thinks Mabel understands that, reading between the lines, hearing what she isn’t ready to say just yet.

“Let’s go swim again! C’mon, Pacifica!” Mabel declares instead of pressing her.

She reaches for Pacifica’s hand and twines their fingers together, sending a shock, a good one, up Pacifica’s arm. As Mabel drags her back toward the pool, Pacifica wonders if their fingers could stay tangled forever, held together by icky, sticky popsicle goo.

That should sound gross, she thinks as she watches Mabel belly flop in, but it doesn’t.

It sounds really nice instead.

* * *

When she gets home, Pacifica stands in the shower for a long time, letting the water beat down on her and hoping it’ll take out all the chlorine smell. Her parents can’t know she was at the public pool, or else she’s dead, or at least close to it.

Northwest’s don’t go to public pools, she can imagine they’d say, voices booming and then ring their bell and she doesn’t want to think about what would happen next.

After she showers, Pacifica sprays the perfume her mother picked out for her, a French kind she can’t even begin to pronounce. It must work because her parents don’t comment on it at dinner, their discussion focusing on the newest fashions and the stupidity of their neighbors.

Pacifica doesn’t like the way they speak of everyone else in town as if they are trash, road kill, something the dog dragged in, but she doesn’t speak up. She knows better than that. Instead, she reminds herself that her time here is running out, that someday she won’t be confined to their house.

That night, Pacifica slips back into her nightgown. Her room is cool despite the heat outside and she pulls the covers up around herself. As she lies in the dark, eyes closed, she reminds herself that tomorrow it will be 586 more days until she can be the person she wants to be, in a place far from here.

Only 586 more days.


End file.
